Shore parents battle kids' summer brain drain

Debbie Zarrello of Lacey looks on as her daughter, Kailey, 7, works on a Rosetta Stone Spanish course on the computer. Debbie and husband Gerry Zarrello encourage their children to keep learning all summer.
(Photo:
Mary Frank/Staff Photographer
)Buy Photo

LACEY – Debbie Zarrello isn't going to let hours of video game play, time spent lounging around the pool or other hallmarks of the lazy days of summer eat away at the academic gains her kids made this school year.

Debbie, her 7-year-old daughter, Kailey, and her 11-year-old son, Joey, have fun during the summer, sure -- trips to area amusement parks, the beach, the zoo and more. But each summer evening, they sit at the dining room table or curl up on the couch in their Forked River home, reading, doing math problems, typing or learning Spanish.

"I just remember going back to school every September and having forgotten 90 percent of what I learned," said Zarrello, a 41-year-old paralegal. She recalls "not remembering the math, and trying to play catch-up for the first marking period."

On average, students are about a month behind academically by the time summer break ends, according to a 2011 RAND Corp. study.

Mom and teacher Christin Bittner-Agee, 34, of Neptune has witnessed this academic fogginess in her own students after summer break.

"You see it," she says of the academic summer slump. "You stop learning, then you're not going to move on."

It can take as long as three weeks for returning students to get back into the rhythm of school, Bittner-Agee said.

To keep the older of her two children academically inspired — the younger one is a baby — Bittner-Agee reads to her 5-year-old daughter each evening.

She's encouraging reading outside her household as well. Bittner-Agee started an online reading challenge for students she tutors, in which she encourages parents to create rewards when students meet their summer reading goals.

"Just to love learning, you have to keep it up," Bitt­ner-Agee said. "Put more play into it. Make it fun. I don't care if they're 3 or 13, make it fun."

All students showed some loss of math skills over the summer months, according to the RAND study. In reading, low-income students stagnated while their higher-income peers improved over the summer.

David Quinn, a fourth-year doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has studied summer learning gaps after kindergarten in black and white students, as well as rich and poor students. Race appeared to make little difference in a student's summer learning stagnation, but income did have an effect, he said. Wealthier students, on average, made further advances in reading through the summer than poorer students, he said.

"Financial capital can help the students get access to summer enrichment programs," Quinn said of wealthier students.

These differences are likely due to wealthier children having greater summer exposure to books, vacations, and stimulating day trips, said Kerry Carley-Rizzuto, an assistant professor of early childhood education at Monmouth University.

"All new learning is predicated on prior knowledge," Carley-Rizzuto said. "It gives them a giant foothold over children who have very limited experiences."

For poorer families who cannot afford to travel, books can act as an equalizer, she said. Books help children experience new things, if not in person, in print, the Monmouth University professor said. Just 20 minutes a day reading with children gives them an educational advantage over many of their peers, she added.

But Quinn, the Harvard researcher, warned against reading too much into the national statistics.

"There's an income-based gap in reading over the summer, but that doesn't necessarily mean in your community the same things are happening," he said.

Many researchers believe the summer learning gaps have long-term consequences for affected children. The differences in high- and low-income student performance in ninth grade could be traced back to years of summer learning gaps, according to a 2007 Johns Hopkins University study.

"It's cumulative; it happens summer after summer after summer," said Kathleen Froriep, a professor of education at Georgian Court University. "The gap continues and increases year after year."

Froriep said reading throughout the summer is integral to keep students' stamina high. Being able to read long passages is a skill required for much of the high-stakes testing pressed on public school students today, she said.

"I kind of cringe when it's all connected to school success or test scores. It's deeper than that," Froriep said. "We don't want them to do it just because a teacher or parent or someone in authority has assigned them to do it."

Reading is integral, as a source of information and joy, she said.

Debbie Zarrello's children — who spend their evenings reading and learning — have discovered their own joy in good books and intellectual stimulation. Zarrello's daughter asked her second-grade teacher to give her packets of worksheets to complete over the summer, and her son frequently spends an hour engrossed with a book each evening.

Summer break "is a brain dump" for many children, but not for Kailey and Joey, their father, Gerry Zarrello, said.

Their evenings spent playing math games, learning Spanish and reading novels "keeps them fresh," he said. "Hopefully, it gives them an edge in their lives."

"I just want them to realize how important education is and that you can still have fun and learn at the same time," Debbie Zarrello said. "It doesn't have to be a struggle and a fight, if you just put a little bit of time and effort into it."

Amanda Oglesby: 732-557-5701; aoglesby@app.com

Beat the summer slump with these four tips

• Day trips and vacations introduce children to new places and new opportunities for learning. For example, a trip to the beach can include simple science lessons on ocean ecology.

• Public libraries are an easy way to encourage reading, but make sure children are reading at an age-appropriate level.